In defense of lyrics

'All art constantly aspires toward the condition of music,' Walter Pater said, in one of the only lines of criticism that has ever meant anything to me (if I could write music, I'd never have bothered with books); music is such a pure form of self-expression, and lyrics, because they consist of words, are so impure, and songwriters, even great ones like [Aimee] Mann, find that, even though they can produce both, words will always let you down. One half of her art is aspiring towards the condition of the other half, and that must be weird, to feel so divinely inspired and so fallibly human, all at the same time. Maybe it's only songwriters who have ever had any inkling of what Jesus felt on a bad day.
- Excerpt from 31 Songs, by Nick Hornby

Me, I like the words - though it's invariably the music that catches me at first - the song 'Kathleen' by Josh Ritter was one that I heard at work, and I fell in love with it, even though I couldn't distinguish the lyrics until I got home and tracked down the song and listened to it in the quiet of my living room. Now I love the imagery of the words; there's an innocence there that doesn't seem to belong to this day and age, or to any day and age that I've ever been a part of, but that maybe my mother would remember.

I think it's interesting that the songs I love tend to have tunes that are simple, repetitive, or even monotonic - 'Kathleen', Blue October's 'Eighteenth Floor Balcony', and 'These R The Thoughts' by Alanis Morissette come readily to mind. The music catches me, the words hold me...but it's the combination that really does it for me. In 'Eighteenth Floor Balcony', Justin Furstenfeld gives words to a mood...an atmosphere...an emotion that I've felt, but that I could never have put into words so easily. And the words aren't fancy, or especially poetic - seen in black-and-white type, in an entry in a weblog, they may not make much sense; and the tune, without the words, is so simple that it's almost obvious - it's hardly even worth humming. But there's a rawness in Justin's voice, and you just know that what he's singing means something personal to him (even if it's imperfectly expressed), and there's a violin, and it's beautiful. Everything comes together to make the music and the lyrics into a song - and the effect, in my humble opinion, is quite divine.

(Where the words are inadequate and flawed is here, in my attempt to explain the loveliness of a song that takes my breath away. Just listen to the song, if you can find it, and then maybe you'll understand...)